More "already" team mates - Mr. Millimeter

As a Spokane Cycling Team, we have an unusual amount of high-level racing experience, including European experience. Bringing a healthy dose of it is the person usually described as the President of our Club, sometimes called Rider One, and intermittently known as Mr. Millimeter. He is also known by his stripper name, Andrei Mylroie.

In yesterday's post, we had a bit of a love letter to Rider Two, so I will try to keep things reasonable today, but the truth is that Rider One is also an exemplary rider and team mate. I have probably spent more time riding with Rider One than anyone else. We have taken a lot of long rides together, many of them just the two of us, and he flat out is a good guy to spin the pedals with.

One thing that I respect a lot as a rider is that Rider One is very strong, but on some rides, he is not the single strongest rider, but most people would not know that. He is an extremely savvy rider who has the best understanding of riding tactics, pack skills and racing smarts of any rider I know. If you think you have a better understanding of race dynamics, think again. He isn't boastful of his knowledge and frankly will rarely offer advice or critique unless you specifically ask, but trust me on this, if he offers some advice, give it serious thought because it is likely to be well considered and based on thousands and thousands of miles of bike experience as a racer and team manager. Have I gone on enough? Maybe, maybe not, but let's let Rider One weigh in with his own comments.

A brief personal bio:
In addition to a not-so-storied career as a bike racer, and a semi-storied career in bike racing, I've been known to spend my time at Desautel Hege Communications where I'm consistently surrounded by strong women that are much smarter than me. I also have a lovely family, and when I'm home I'm consistently surrounded by women that are much smarter than me. Originally from New York, I spent about 10 years living in Boulder, Colorado, where I also went to college. Somehow I survived a decade in the Gore-Tex Vortex without becoming too disillusioned about the rest of the world.

Cycling bio:
I started racing way before bike racing was cool to anyone but bike racers. As a junior racer I seemed to be able to get almost great results at just about every level. I almost won a bunch of races locally, regionally and occasionally nationally. At the time I was racing against this 13 year old that was already three years past hitting puberty that won everything. His name was George Hincapie, and he ended up making a pretty decent name for himself. Excuses aside (I blame my parents and their mediocre genetics for everything), after college I worked for professional road and mountain bike teams for a number of years. Fun stuff. It gave me a chance to fill a passport with stamps, get a ton of free gear and hire a bunch of athletes you might have heard of.

Favorite rides. Local and otherwise.
Spokane is hands down one of my favorite places in the world to ride a bike. No exaggeration. Pick a direction and I'll tell you about a ride I love. If I have to pick though, there's a big loop that goes past Long Lake, through the Spokane Indian Reservation and back to Spokane via Tum Tum. Amazing. Oh, and if you can work it into your schedule I highly recommend a trip to the Dolomites. The coffee is outstanding.

Rider One didn't give much clarity to his professional team manager days, but a couple of names I can throw out that I know he managed were the Shaklee Cycling Team and the Trek-VW Mountain Bike Team, which included riders like Travis Brown, Paulo Pezzo (World Champion) and Michael Rasmussen (yes, THAT Michael Rasmussen).

Suffice to say he knows his stuff, and that is one of the things that makes it fun to ride with Mr. Millimeter. And frankly, when your knowledge of cycling is that deep, it explains the millimeter by millimeter approach to equipment adjustment. He got over the large-scale adjustments 20 years ago so it's reasonable he is fine-tuning these days.

I'm just glad to get to tag along. Thanks for being another great team mate.
Rider Three